Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is having nightmares about hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) following their adventures a few years earlier. Micheal has had his AAA bodyguard license suspended until it’s reviewed by the governing board. His therapist suggests he leave his future self messages on his phone and take a much-needed vacation. Michael’s relaxing trip to the Italian coast is violently interrupted by Darius’ wife Sonia (Salma Hayek). She’s involved in a shootout with henchmen of the mafioso that kidnapped Darius and needs Michael to help her save him. Michael complains that he’s taking a sabbatical from guns and being a bodyguard, but Sonia won’t take no for an answer. They find the warehouse where Darius is being held and free him, killing every thug there. That complicates the case of Interpol agent Bobby O’Neill (Frank Grillo) as the mafioso was a confidential informant about a potential threat to Europe’s digital infrastructure from Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Papadopoulos (Antonio Banderas). Papadopoulos is angry over European Union sanctions against Greece, and he plans on taking his revenge by planting a computer virus in Europe’s biggest internet junction and destroying anything connected to the web, including banking, power generation and distribution and more. Bryce and the Kincaids can avoid long prison terms if they work with Agent O’Neill and stop Papadopoulos from enacting his plan. It would help if they could not kill each other in the process.

If you’re looking for a deep, complex examination of life and existence in the modern world, “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” ain’t it. This is mindless summer movie entertainment. It’s the junk food of cinema. It makes a billboard for a personal injury lawyer look like high art. “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is empty calories for your brain…and that’s just fine by me.

While it’s as equally predictable as “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” the story is not really why we’re sitting in a dark theater watching Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Selma Hayek screaming at each other and trotting around Europe. The purpose of this kind of goofy film is to allow the audience to escape the outside world and go to a place that’s uncomplicated and requires nothing from us. We want to take a brief mental vacation from work issues, family problems, political strife and coronavirus fears.

Ryan Reynolds is his usual charming self. He plays a more broken version of Michael than before. Without his AAA bodyguard license suspended, he doesn’t know who he is or what he should do with the rest of his life. This is played for laughs as he annoys everyone around him (including his therapist) and tries a non-violent form of personal protection, arming himself with pepper spray and unloading all the guns he gets his hands on. Reynolds plays roughly the same character in most of his films: Sweet but edgy, kind but selfish, easily tricked into whatever scheme Sonia and Darius have cooked up but always one step ahead. It’s Reynolds’ gift to be able to perform the same character so effortlessly and still be entertaining.

The same can be said for Samuel L. Jackson. Darius is very similar to his brief role in “Sprial: From the Book of Saw” as former Police Chief Marcus Banks. It’s also a great deal like most of his film roles from the last 30 years, from Jules in “Pulp Fiction” to the “Shaft” reboots to “XXX” to “Snakes on a Plane” to “Django Unchained” to pretty much every other film, with the exception of the “Star Wars” prequels where he is much more toned down. Finding your groove and getting people to pay for you to play the same person repeatedly, isn’t a criticism. Jackson is 72 years old and one of the most bankable actors working in films today. According to his Wikipedia page, a tallying of the total grosses of his film appearance that aren’t cameos, Jackson’s movies have made $27 billion at the worldwide box office. As the saying goes” If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And Jackson ain’t broke in any sense of the word. It may not set the world on fire, but Jackson’s performance in “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is the kind his fans have come to expect and love. In that regard, he doesn’t disappoint.

What can you say about Selma Hayek’s performance that doesn’t involve her beauty? She is a constant source of energy in the film. You can feel the heat radiating from her as she either rails at Darius and Michael for not getting along or smolders when she expresses her passion for her husband and her desire to have his baby (a running joke and minor subplot in the film). The several times she strings together a mixture of English and Spanish curses at whomever throughout the movie is a hoot, and her motherly feelings for Michael pay off in a joke at the end of the film. Hayek is part of why this film is worth seeing.

Poor Antonio Banderas. He’s rarely given anything interesting to do in these popcorn movies when he’s the villain. Papadopoulos is a very generic bad guy. He’s angry at the world and has the money and power to exact his revenge. His target is the leaders of the EU, but his real victims will be the small businesses and workers that will lose their jobs, their savings and their homes if he succeeds. It’s a bad part written with little consideration for the talented actor playing him. He gets to wear a lovely grey wig and some gaudy costumes, but that’s small consolation considering the how underutilized he is. Someone please, write a good part for Banderas in an action comedy! I’m begging you!

The humor and action in “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is also more of the same from the first film, but I enjoyed it all again. The fights, the chases, the wanton destruction of property and infrastructure is a bit more messy in this go round. Splitting up the final confrontations into three didn’t work for me as I’d rather watch the trio fight together to defeat numerous foes than have them scattered and their heroics cut up into multiple scenes. Michaels’ final showdown with his ultimate enemy was a bit of a stretch to believe as he’s fighting someone who, in real life, is 40 years older. Still, the way that struggle is set up made its conclusion a bit more satisfying. The humor is of the juvenile level we got in the first film. I’m a teenager in an old man’s body, so I found the film funny, if slightly less funny than last time.

“The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language, and some sexual content. There are numerous shootings with lots of blood spatter, a few corpses are shown with their eyes stabbed out, there are lots of fights, stabbings, car crashes and people hit by cars. The sexual content is more on the humorous side as Hayek and Jackson are shown and heard having sex a few times while Reynolds responds with disgust. Foul language is common with Samuel L. Jackson delivering his trademark MF’s and the rest of the cast joins in.

I really enjoyed “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” from 2017. I loved the humor and action. While the story was predictable, the rest of it worked for me in a big way. It would have been easy to just repeat the formula from the first film in “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” and the filmmakers mostly do. There’s a tiny bit of stunt casting that was a huge surprise that also leads to a double cross late in the story. There are more scenic locations to look at during shootouts and car chases, and the massively complicated and unlikely scheme of the bad guy is pretty standard. All in all, “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is more of the same and for me, that works.

“The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” gets four stars out of five.

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